Untamed Brush I (2015/2018) by Hi Kyung Kim
for viola
World premiere

Untamed Brush I (2015/2019) was inspired by Korean traditional brush painting. I was learning traditional brush painting while I was staying in Seoul as a Fulbright senior scholar in 2014-2015. It looks simple, yet it is so hard even drawing one line correctly. One has to focus and balance in order to create a simple line — a line of an orchid leaf, for example. I was trying to draw the lines of the orchids in this viola music. Each line stands for each string. All of the possible factors in energy, strength, bending, direction, and root are compressed in this version of the piece. A beautiful painting is made at the tip of my master teachers' brush: Master Sudang and Master Yuldang, and unskilled painting is drawn at the tip of my brush.

Untamed Brush was originally written for the 30th year celebration for Earplay as a short piece, EarBrush; Untamed Brush is developed as a fully expanded piece with exploration of the many possible realms of viola. It is written for violist Ellen Ruth Rose.